Main menu

Post navigation

Some of that Old-Time Religion!

While the concept of all powerful monotheistic or pantheistic creator gods does exist on the Coin, most cultures do not worship them, and many doubt their existence altogether. The major religions tend to form around the domains of existence as portrayed by the aspects of the moons. Other worship is regarded as misguided at best and dangerously cultish at worst.

The aspects of the moons are both symbolic of and have direct influence over ten domains of existence. Each has a “sibling” domain that is part opposite and part compliment of the other. The domains and their siblings are Nature & Magic, Knowledge & Trickery, Tempest & Discipline, Death & Life, Light & Dark. When an aspect shows itself in the sky, that domain has precedent power over all others. There has never been a documented time when more than one aspect showed itself in the same place at the same time.

Those that devote themselves to the domains are less “worshippers” and more “stewards”. They help manage when and where the power of their devoted domain can best be applied. In turn, they do not see those devoted to other domains as being in the wrong or as enemies in most cases. The stewardship of the domains emphasizes harmony and cooperation over all things and working with the other domains is key to this. It may be that they see certain domains as being a bit more harmonious than others at times… Which does lead to conflicts, but they are usually short lived and more about methods than beliefs.

Many temples and shrines are devoted to a single domain, but smaller sites may have multiple domains under their stewardship. Sometimes this means that one steward will devote themselves to multiple domains, at others it means multiple stewards work together. Larger populations have the space, money and people so that individual temples can have a tighter focus.

The most common creation myth, in various forms, does involve true gods. In each version, there is a pantheon of gods that formed existence out of nothing. In each version, as well, the creatures inhabiting the Coin seemed to spontaneously appear. The gods then debated what to do about them. One half of them wanted to destroy the creatures that dared infest their creation, while the other half urged leniency. A coin was flipped into the void to decide the fate of the creatures on the face of it. The myths say that one day the gods will return, the coin will stop spinning through space, and the fate of all life will be decided.

Many prophets, some seeming mad while others frighteningly sane, foretell that the time of the Creator gods’ return is at hand. They cite comets in the sky and whispers of a coming conjunction of the moons. True stewards of the moons preach calm and collected action when catastrophes occur, and the “omens” talked about by these prophets are no exception. It must be noted, however, that some of the larger temples have sent out investigators to find out as much about these events as they can, just so they don’t be caught unawares, and to root out potentially dangerous cults spreading fear for their own ends.

Some of these cults worship the gods, either singly or as a pantheon, talked about in the ancient creation myths. Others worship gods that are said to be even older still, unfathomable beings from outside our existence whose power is said to dwarf that of the creators. Many more give penance to and do the work of creatures that actually do exist, but are not true gods. Demons, Devils and other powerful extra-planar creatures can dupe mortals into worshipping them. Living creatures on the coin itself can sway the wills of those weaker than them. Illithid Elder Brains, Liches, Vampire Lords, and Ancient Dragons are among those that are worshipped as gods by mortal vassals on the faces of the coins. Some of these entities even come to believe their own hype, despite there always being something further up the totem pole.

Widely regarded as the most dangerous and insidious of cults, the worship (if it can be called that) of Chaos is by far the widest spread. Often taking the guise of the Creators or of Elder Gods, Chaotic forces -some sentient, some not- want to further the dissolution of the very fabric of space and time. They desire nothing more than the total entropic death of all reality.

Chaos is most deceptive since it actually uses the powers of the Domains of Existence and the schools of magic to do its work. A steward of a domain may think they are doing the good work, but if their mind is tainted by Chaos, it can work through them to further its ends. Luckily this taint will always leave a mark for those that know how to see it. For those attuned to the powers that govern existence, these tinges of Chaos can be spotted in any works -from art to relationships to magic- and thus be rooted out and the perpetrator tracked down.

As for those works so tainted, they can be sanctified again through various rituals or deeds. Doing so has the potential to reduce the influence of Chaos in a region surrounding the tainted work as well as boosting the influence of the domain used to sanctify it.